


as though i had wings

by Nokomis



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Hopeful Ending, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23797081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: For the first time in his life, Finn isn't at war.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29
Collections: Finn Centric Recommendations





	as though i had wings

**Author's Note:**

> For Luna, who prompted this months ago. I didn't forget! title is from the poetry prompt for this: _I am thinking now  
>  of grief, and of getting past it;  
> I feel my boots  
> trying to leave the ground,  
> I feel my heart  
> pumping hard. I want  
> to think again of dangerous and noble things.  
> I want to be light and frolicsome.  
> I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,  
> as though I had wings._
> 
> _— Mary Oliver_

Rey had been gone for a week, off on some obscure pilgrimage she didn’t seem to want to share the details of. Finn knew that she came back from Exegol a little bit broken, and he'd tried asking but Rey would just shake her head and insist that she was fine, right up until she was taking off in the Falcon with a promise that she’d be back, though without mention of _when_.

“Grief’ll do that to you.” 

It’s strange, the ways grief apparently _does_ do that to you, because it doesn’t occur to Finn that he shouldn’t be hearing that voice until he looked over and met Leia’s steady eyes.

He stumbled, somehow, despite the fact that he’d been standing still. Leia looked different -- not only because she was dead, but because it looked as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Finn had only known her in the midst of the war that had taken everything from her -- husband, brother, son -- and looking at her now Finn wondered if he’d truly known her at all.

“Make you run from the people who love you?” Another revelation: Finn hadn’t realized he was _angry_ at Rey until this moment. Until the bitterness spilled over his lips, confided to a ghost.

“Make you selfish,” Leia said. “Make you willing to do anything it takes to claw your way back towards feeling like the person you thought you were, and can never be again.” Her hand fluttered out, as though she were going to rest it on Finn’s arm before remembering the cosmic gulf between them. Her smile was gentle as she asked the question Finn had been unwilling to face: “Who are you now?”

A rebel, he wanted to say, but the rebellion was dead. A soldier, but peace was now overtaking the galaxy. “I don’t know.”

“Then go and find out.” Leia issued commands like breathing, and Finn found himself straightening up and preparing to embark before the ghostly image of her had faded away, before it had even occurred to him to wonder where his identity might be found.

A day later, he was in space, watching stars zip past and feeling gloriously _free_. 

Poe had understood when he’d asked for a ship, babbling-- he wasn’t even sure, entirely, what he’d told Poe, but had tried to express the feeling that Leia’s words had stirred up within him. The longing for freedom, the need to see what was out there, just _wanting_. 

His life was divided into segments, he could see that clearly now. Stormtrooper life, always following commands out of fear. Rebellion life, choosing to follow Leia’s command, striving for a brighter future. And now -- this _was_ the future he’d longed for, and he had to figure out what to do with it.

Once -- and he could no longer even picture who he’d been when he’d heard it, only that he’d been young enough that the image felt burned into his brain like a hologram -- he’d heard about a planet with shimmering waters crashing onto beaches of soft sand, and that was where he set out to. The First Order had stolen even fantasy from its stormtroopers, but if he’d been allowed the freedom to dream, he’d have dreamt of sitting on those shores, watching iridescent water.

Two days after seeing Leia’s ghost, he was there.

The beach was as beautiful as he’d imagined. The water looked like a thousand colors all at once, glimmering and shifting silver, purple, blue. The shore was covered in pale grey sand that felt like clouds beneath his feet, and he pulled off his boots and sank his toes into the sand, let the waters rush over his feet, cold and crisp and beautiful. 

The rest of the planet was like any other -- dirty shops and hungry faces, skinny children and fat landlords, and the food being sold near the shore was gloopy and made Finn thankful for his ration packs back on his ship -- but this moment, standing here and breathing in the cool, fragrant air, was worth everything.

He slept on the ship, and spent hours on the beach, watching the waters shift and shimmer with endless fascination. He could spend days here, he thought. Weeks. 

But not forever.

It was a happy feeling, settled deep within him. He had fulfilled a dream. He had seen something he had never thought he would be able to -- and he knew this wasn’t home. He checked his messages to find a brief one from Rey -- _still alive_ \-- and a longer one from Poe -- gossip about everyone left at the camp, a list of things Lando had said that Poe absolutely had to share verbatim, and casually, as though it was a thing people said all the time, _miss you buddy, hope you’re happy in the stars_ \-- and Finn felt that thing again, that bursting feeling in his chest. The one he’d felt the day he broke free from the First Order, when he’d met his heroes, when he’d _survived_. Joy. 

There was so much joy in this new world, this _future_ he was forging out of all that old grief.

He sent Rey back a hologram of the ever-shifting sea, of his own smiling face, and hoped that joy found its way into her heart, too. 

He wrote back to Poe, a simple _i am, see you soon_ and the bright feeling settled more firmly in his chest. He could see the galaxy, could do anything he wanted, and there were people who cared for him. Who wanted him to be happy. 

He thought of Leia’s question again, and the answer was just as unclear, but now it occurred to him that he had time to discover who he was. Who he wanted to be. He had survived, he was gloriously alive, and he could become anyone he wanted to be.

The war was over, and this time, he had a feeling the peace was going to last. 

And he was going to help repair some of the damage wrought by the people who had damaged him. He had stood amongst heroes -- alongside the people whose names were whispered with growing reverence, and maybe someday he’d hear his own name talked about. Finn, who was raised a Stormtrooper, who broke free and helped the rebels and survived and became someone who could stand on a beautiful beach at the edge of the galaxy and dream of the future.

But for now, he was going to return to his friends,with the knowledge that he was truly free settled deep into his very bones. 

He took one last glance at the iridescent water, gleaming under the sharp pink sunlight, and marched back to his ship.


End file.
